Friday, May 29, 2015

Now and Forever by Mary Connealy

I
like series from Connealy. The characters are quirky and fun. The poetic
mountain men, who waxed so eloquent, were a riot. There were times I
laughed out loud. Yet there is some depth to this novel too.

This
is a sequel to Tried and True but it reads very well on its
own. (You can read my review of that book here.) The three Wilde
sisters came out west in that book, dressed as men, to get and
maintain homesteads, pushed by their father. Now, in this novel,
Kylie is married, Bailey is a rancher and Shannon has a ranch too,
with sheep.

As
this novel opens, Shannon happens to be walking up in the hills when
Matthew Tucker comes crashing down the hill – an angry bear coming
down right after him. Seeing the bear, Shannon grabs Tucker, who is
bruised and bleeding, and jumps off the cliff, into the most
dangerous river around. They manage to survive the treacherous water
by catching a snag and crawling into a coal tunnel. They ultimately
find their way out days later and get rescued. But all is not well.
Shannon's reputation has been compromised, being with a man all those
nights. The parson insists they wed. But they've only known each
other five days (and innocent nights). Oh, there is trouble ahead.
That's the fun part.

The
serious part has two aspects. One is Gage, a land owner who wants
Shannon's land and the water on it. He'd not anticipated homesteaders
coming to all the land he had taken for himself years ago. Shannon
and her hold on the water was preventing him from making the most of
his range land. The tension in this novel has its roots in the
previous one.

There
is another very series issue – someone is burning out homesteaders.
It seems only a matter of time before Shannon and Tucker will be
targeted. Will Tucker be able to protect the woman he loves?

We
learn a bit about homesteading too, especially land use in general.
Gage is concerned because many of the homesteaders are not properly
using the land and it will be useless by the time they give up and
leave.

The
only thing that makes this novel less than perfect is the ending. It
just went way too fast and did not seem in the same rhythm as the
rest of the novel. Also, Shannon's actions at the end did not seem
consistent with her character through the rest of the novel.

And
there is a misquoting of Genesis 2:24 (Eph. 5:31) at the end of the
novel that bothers me. That verse is used to convince another of
“biblical” action. If that verse had been quoted correctly, the
novel would have had to end differently in order to be “biblical.”

This
is a pretty good novel but I feel it does have its problems. Most of
the novel was very enjoyable. It was just the last chapter that had the problems.

Books I've read

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About Me

I am a retired Christian bookstore owner of 33 years. I still love books and read as many as I can, blogging my reviews. I have also taken up photography and sell photos of Whidbey Island and nearby landscapes.